


Dead Reckoning

by LadyTorix



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Kinda, M/M, Post-Predacons Rising (Prime Movie), Stream of Consciousness, after Optimus' came back to life in RID, ex-warlord with all the emotional awareness of a teaspoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTorix/pseuds/LadyTorix
Summary: n. To find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.





	Dead Reckoning

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my friend [specspectacle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/specspectacle/) for being my beta reader!

I have never feared death.

I have faced death thousands of times, and each time I have stood triumphant, the victor! First in the arena, then upon countless battlefields. Dented, bleeding--if the enemy was lucky--but never defeated!

...now there seems so little point to continuing without an opponent. But I guess you’ve been gone a long time haven’t you, Orion?

The stars spin above me, as the cold sinks into my joints. Soon there will be no escape. I will die here by my own hand, and none other--not even brought down by a worthy foe!

Optimus.

Orion.

You are a fool.

And now you’re a dead fool.

...as I float in the depths of space, all that’s left within me now is a bottomless fatigue. Even my rage is not what it once was--boiling and overflowing, pushing me forward in my path of conquest. I suppose you should have sacrificed yourself sooner. Perhaps then your Autobots would have won eons ago.

In my haze I can still see Orion standing there, as he was in the early days. So full of hope, and trust, but that mech is long gone. I suppose the revolutionary he admired so much died in that council room too. I wonder if any of him remains? Probably not. It’s been too long.

Far too long.

I wonder, will I see you again Orion? Or will only Optimus Prime be waiting in the Afterspark?

Perhaps, I will merely drift through space until I rust away, trapped in my body for all eternity by the dark energon that still flows through my veins.

A fitting end, some would say.

What would you say Orion? What would you say if you could see all that I’ve become? All that we became? Would you still have reached out to the gladiator shouting until his voice was hoarse? Would you still have offered me compassion?

You probably would--you were always so naive. Yet...I miss you Orion.

I miss your enthusiasm, your sincerity--your warmth. I miss how you’d become flustered when we’d debate. Seldom could you defeat me, Orion!

The cold crawls ever deeper. The visions come faster now, each feeling more substantial than the last. We meet, we come together, we part. We fight. I die. Then reborn by the will of callous god, we fight again. We fight for all eternity in my mind.

I will never see you again, Orion.

An endless sea of stars. Somehow it is still preferable to dying buried in the dark of the mines. To be buried for all eternity. No. Better to be here. Much better.

Remember when we used to sit together and gaze into the night sky and talk of the all the things we would do, you and I? We were going to change the world together?

Well, our world was changed, though not in the way either of us intended.

Your optics shone bright for the idea of a better world once. I wonder what kind of world you would have created for your Autobots if you’d survived? Built on the ruins of the old, I wonder if it would have succumbed to the same follies? Or would you have built your shining utopia?

Emerging from the mists of my delirium, I see you reach for me. Yet another figment of my aching spark no doubt. Though the action comes at an immense cost to my failing systems, I reach for your outstretched servo. Ghost, hallucination, phantom, I no longer care.

I just want to see you once more...Orion.

* * *

 I wake.

It is dim.

But this is not the vacuum of space.

I am on a berth. A half dozen monitors display my vitals nearby.

Blue optics stare at me out of the corner of my eye. It is difficult to move, but I WILL make my systems obey me once more! I force myself upright--what foolish Autobot thinks they will get the best of Megatron!?! I will not die by a fool’s hand!

But servos reach out and gently push me back down, a low voice commands me to rest.

I stare.

You are at my bedside.

I tell you you’re dead. I watched you die.

You shake your head.

The war is over. Your role is over, you say. Cybertron lives, Cybertron thrives, but there’s no place for you in it anymore.

I demand to know what you want as I lose my patience. Why pull me from the jaws of death (AGAIN) to bore me with drivel. You should have just left me to die in peace!

You do not answer, you optics dim, as if you’re seeing something far away.

I calm...and slowly reach for you. You make no move to stop me. I grasp your hand, intertwining your fingers with my own. If you are only an illusion, then you are doing a good impression of being something of substance.

I am furious with you! You are a fool!

I ache to embrace you.

Tugging you closer, I reach up and touch your cheek. You’re an idiot. I growl angrily, stroking your face with my thumb before pulling your face down towards mine where I begin kissing you furiously.

Your optics are wide, but you relax into my grip in seconds, gasping out a modicum of surprise of some sort. But I no longer care, I am longer listening--I pull you down onto my berth.

I tell you all the things I wanted to tell Orion, but then the words keep coming. I pour myself out completely--anger, rage, bitterness, I hold nothing back. When this has abated, I am faced with stranger emotions. Stronger emotions.

Relief.

Relief that you’re not dead. Surely this is because I wish to kill you myself, as I have long wished!

But that’s a lie.

Exhaustion still claws at my core. It is not just the lack of energon for several cycles, but a spark deep weariness that clings to my body, to my mind. I have lost my desire for conquest and war.

I do not know what I have left.

It is silent, only the beeping of the monitors mark the passing of time.

You ask me to come with you.

I snort--I have no wish to return to Cybertron in chains, or as some sort of unsavory warning for the next generation.

But that does not appear to be what you have in mind. You came looking for me, not for revenge, not for my destruction--but because you wished to find me.

We have been trying to kill each other for millions of years--surely, you jest.

The war is over, we can have a second chance, you say. You ask if I am willing to take it. You ask me to stay.

You’re already on my berth, it’s not as if I have let you go since we have started this inane conversation. Orion may have been oblivious to my advances, but I would hope you’ve gained more experience in the last million years, Optimus. Do you really need me to spell out my answer for you that badly!?!

You have the audacity to chuckle at me for that remark. ME.

I squeeze you tighter, lacing my words with profanity--to tell you exactly what I think of your well of the allspark stunt, and that under no circumstances would I let you do such a preposterous act again.

I won’t suffer losing you a third time.

Idiot.

* * *

Beneath your weariness, I catch tiny glimpses of Orion. Like flashes of sunlight between the clouds--such brilliant warmth that dims all too quickly.

The longer we travel, the easier it becomes--this thing between us. Eventually, you stoicism gives way to an ease that I had thought long gone. I hear you laugh for the first time in centuries.

When I wake, you are beside me. When I recharge you are in my arms, or I am in yours. In the quiet moments you squeeze my servo, as we travel through the galaxy. We do and see all the things we yearned for when we were young.

I call you Orion without thinking. Breathlessly, you ask me to say your name again and again. In that moment, your warmth surrounds me like a summer sun.

I don’t stop.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted these two to have the reunion we never got in the series and this jumped into my head one night so I wrote it down. (Writing this Megs is a bit of a trip ya'll, he's like 90% bluster and it is AMAZING.)
> 
> The definition of Dead Reckoning used in the fic's summary is from The Dictionary of Obscure Words, which by it's own admission is, "a compendium of invented words," but it was too perfect not to use.
> 
>  
> 
> [The Dictionary of Obscure Words](https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/55017468713/dead-reckoning)


End file.
